Washington (AFP)

"Unacceptable", "unforgivable". "You have a systemic problem of quality!" US Congressmen scourged Boeing's boss, who has been keeping a low profile, on Wednesday.

In the aftermath of a tense hearing in front of angry American senators, Dennis Muilenburg appeared visibly moved, sometimes on the brink of tears.

Before the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, he clearly acknowledged his responsibility in the accidents of the 737 MAX of Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines that killed 346 people.

"My company and I are responsible and we know we need to improve," said Muilenburg, hammering that he was learning from these tragic mistakes and was willing to "report".

"We have even more to learn so that this never happens again," he added as the entire fleet of 737 MAXs has been grounded since mid-March, and the air safety authorities have not not yet decided to put it back into service.

As the day before, Boeing's boss apologized to the families of the victims in the room, whom he had met before the hearing for the first time for two hours.

"I would like to say again that I am sorry, I will never forget what happened," he said.

Faced with the comments of the Chairman of the Committee on Transport and Infrastructure, Mr. Muilenburg was a shadow of himself, his eyes misty, sometimes unable to speak. He often let the chief engineer of the commercial division, John Hamilton, answer for him.

"It's unacceptable, leaving everyone in the dark is unacceptable, it's unprecedented," rushed Peter DeFazio, denouncing the fact that pilots were not informed of the existence of MCAS, a software program supposed to prevent the 737 MAX from going into a dive, especially in case of loss of speed.

"We need answers," said DeFazio, who also asked him why the software, which was implicated in the two tragedies, was not mentioned in the pilots' manuals.

- "Like a hitman" -

Another member of Congress particularly mistreated him: "You said that you were responsible, why not give up your salary and tell us that your remuneration was not reduced with all that?" You continue to work and to earn $ 30 million a year, "said parliamentarian Steve Cohen.

"To hear that he received $ 30 million, he's like a hit man, he killed our loved ones and he got a bonus ... it's unheard of," AFP told AFP. Chris Moore, a Canadian whose daughter Danielle, a UN volunteer, died in the Ethiopian Airlines accident on March 10th.

In 2018, year of the tragedy of Lion Air, the boss actually received a little less: 23.4 million dollars including a bonus of 13 million, according to the group's financial documents.

According to Chris Moore, Mr. Muilenburg does not assume his responsibilities, as proof that he has not resigned.

On this point, Dennis Muilenburg has instead argued that staying at his post to solve the problem of the 737 MAX was his way to assume.

"I grew up on a farm in Iowa and my dad taught me not to run away from difficulties and it's a difficult situation," he said.

Boeing's boss reiterated that the group's priority was quality, which one member strongly questioned.

"You have a systemic quality problem - you are looking for profit, not quality - you are generating profit, not quality or security," said Michael Capuano.

"Your three main products have quality problems," he added, also citing the 787 Dreamliner long-haul and the KC-46 military refueling plane.

"I do not agree, the only sustainable economic model is security," defended Mr. Muilenburg.

Some other elected officials seemed to support Mr. Muilenburg, addressing general and related issues such as the lack of training of pilots around the world or the fact that plane crashes were often the consequence of a chain of incidents and not a single malfunction.

At the end of these two days of audition, Dennis Muilenburg was not completely able to silence speculation about his future as Boeing.

He was recently removed from his position as Chairman of the Board of Directors and is now only the Chief Executive Officer.

© 2019 AFP